


after dark

by lightningstormsandriddles



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Monsters, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 21:52:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12517372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningstormsandriddles/pseuds/lightningstormsandriddles
Summary: There are things moving in the shadows between trees, between worlds.





	after dark

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Tumblr but I decided to post a copy here as well, because it's something I'm actually super fond of. It was first written on Oct. 4th when I hadn't slept for something like twenty hours so I figured I'd go back to the post later and immediately hate it on sight.
> 
> But I didn't. I think it's probably the best thing I've ever written. So I'm putting it here for other people to read and hopefully enjoy.

Don’t go out after dark.

There are things moving in the shadows between the trees, between worlds, They’ll reach for you with grasping claws and dripping teeth, sharp spikes and leathery wings. They’ll beckon for you with their sweet voices, with their helpless cries; try to lure you in, off the path you tread.

Don’t go out after dark, they said. They warned you; your parents and grandparents, your neighbors and co-workers, who have lived in this town, on this world, longer than you. Who have glimpsed the things wandering in the dark and come back scared, scarred.

But you do, because you’re young. Because you don’t understand, haven’t seen, haven’t heard. Because you’re not afraid. So you dress in warm clothes; your father’s favorite flannel shirt and the jeans you and your mother bought on a shopping trip last week, your favorite sneakers with the multicolored laces and the white toes etched with black Sharpie. You pick up a flashlight and step out into the night.

Things move in the shadows, the trees breathe and creak, and something whispers from the dark. “Come play with us,” they call, all giggling words and dripping poison. You keep your eyes on the path, on the bobbing beam of your flashlight, and try your best to ignore it. There’s nothing else for you to do; you’ve come too far to go back now, and you have something to prove.

And you make it out safe. The path through the woods leads you on a winding walk through branches and over a stream, back out onto the street your house is on. You’ve seen things, yes, but they stayed away from the beam of your flashlight and you stayed on the path, ignored their whispers and their cries.

You don’t brag about it, after, because you know this much; those that have done what you have done and bragged all disappear, one way or another. So you spend a peaceful week with your mother, your father, your friends, and you say nothing of your walk after dark. You help your grandparents at their shop and you keep your secret to yourself, even though it builds and builds in your throat and sits there on the tip of your tongue. The scar on your grandmother’s neck helps you keep the secret, and the ones on your grandfather’s arms.

Don’t go out after dark, they said, they warned. But you did, and you do again.

You go again the next week, and the week after that, always dressed warm and with a flashlight to hand. The shadows creep and shift and whisper. Eventually, they call you by name. They become used to your presence, this strange creature with smooth skin and no horns who dares to walk in the shadows with them.

One night, halfway through your walk, the faithful flashlight beam flickers and dies. Too far to turn back, too far to run forward, but you are not afraid. These shadows, these creatures, are your friends, or something like it. They have talked to you during these long walks on these cold nights, listened to your troubles and told you theirs in return. Surely they won’t hurt you, surely they’ll let you go safely as they have so many times before.

And they do, or near enough. Your walk is almost finished, the empty street in sight, when the grasping claws and the dripping teeth come for you, the sharp spikes and the leathery wings.

The first slams into you hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs and your body hits the ground hard, weighted down by the creature salivating above you. A second joins the throng, and a third, and then a roar splits the night.

You’ve heard whispers of this too, in dim bars and airy cafes, at restaurant counters and cafeteria tables; a creature older than the town, older than the forest and its creatures.

Most of the creatures flee before it, all except for the one holding you down. It hasn’t even noticed the danger, its teeth deep in your shoulder as your nails gouge at its scaly body in retaliation. The roar comes again, closer, and then the creature is torn away from you. There’s a yelp, the sound of tearing flesh and breaking bone, and a waterfall of inky black blood sprays on you and the earth in equal measure.

You try to get up, to move, but you can’t—paralyzed by fear, by uncertainty, by pain, you can only scramble backwards a short distance before you can go no further.

And a claw reaches towards you out of the murky darkness. You squeeze your eyes shut, because the evidence of what claws like those are capable of is writ onto the bodies of your grandparents and on your body, now, blood soaking into your shirt.

But nothing happens. There’s just the sound of the wind in the trees, the creature’s breathing and your own, shaky with panic. You open your eyes, cautiously, and look up at the clawed hand offered to you. It’s more a paw than a hand, covered in fur, and as you look up at the mass of fur and claws and fangs and wings above you, you think the stories had it wrong. The creature is old, yes, and dangerous; there’s no doubt about that, not with the inky blood staining your clothes and the scaly body cooling beyond your creature. The creature is old but it—she—is lonely, too.

You take the hand offered to you and you’re lifted to your feet, set back down on the path. The street is in sight, with its rows of houses and lampposts, its garbage cans set out by the road for the garbage men that will come with the dawn. A creature’s hand is in yours, making sure you have your balance, and you look back to her and smile. “Come walk with me?” you ask and step off the path, your rescuer trailing along behind.

Don’t go out after dark, they said, they warned. But if you do, there’s a human and her creature that will shadow your steps and guard you from the claws and fangs, the spikes and wings, whether you remembered a flashlight or not.


End file.
